The Old Folks' Party: 1898

By Edward Bellamy

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "The Old Folks' Party" (1898) by Edward Bellamy. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

• Language: English
• Publisher: DigiCat
• Release date: Sep 16, 2022
• ISBN: 8596547371281

Edward Bellamy

Edward Bellamy (1850-1898) was an American journalist, novelist, and political activist. Born in Chicopee, Massachusetts, he was the son of Baptist minister Rufus King Bellamy and his wife Maria. Educated at public school, he attended Union College for just one year before abandoning his studies to travel throughout Europe. Upon returning, he briefly considered a career in law before settling on journalism. Before his life was upended by tuberculosis at the age of 25, Bellamy worked at the New York Post and Springfield Union. After his diagnosis, he sought to recuperate in the Hawaiian Islands, returning to the United States in 1878. Thereafter, he pursued a career in fiction, publishing such psychological novels as Six to One (1878) and Dr. Heidenhoff’s Process (1880). His first major work was Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (1888), a utopian science fiction novel which became an immediate bestseller in the United States and Great Britain. Its popularity spurred the founding of Nationalist Clubs around the country, wherein readers of Bellamy’s work gathered to discuss the author’s revolutionary vision of a new American society. In 1891, Bellamy founded The New Nation, a political magazine dedicated to the emerging People’s Party. A left-wing agrarian populist, Bellamy advocated for animal rights, wilderness preservation, and equality for women. His novel Equality (1897), a sequel to Looking Backward, expands upon the theories set out in his most popular work and was praised by such political thinkers as John Dewey and Peter Kropotkin. At the height of his career, Bellamy succumbed to tuberculosis in his hometown of Chicopee Falls.

Book preview

Edward Bellamy

The Old Folks' Party

1898

EAN 8596547371281

DigiCat, 2022

Contact: [e-mail]

Table of Contents

Cover

Titlepage

Text

"

And now what shall we do next Wednesday evening? said Jessie Hyde, in a business-like tone. It is your turn, Henry, to suggest.

Jessie was a practical, energetic young lady, whose blue eyes never relapsed into the dreaminess to which that color is subject. She furnished the go for the club. Especially she furnished the go for Henry Long, who had lots of ideas, but without her to stir him up was as dull as a flint without a steel.

There were six in the club, and all were present to-night in Jessie's parlor. The evening had been given to a little music, a little dancing, a little card-playing, and a good deal of talking. It was near the hour set by the club rule for the adjournment of its reunions, and the party had drawn their chairs together to consult upon the weekly recurring question, what should be done at the next meeting by way of special order of amusement. The programmes were alternately reading, singing, dancing, whist; varied with evenings of miscellaneous sociality like that which had just passed. The members took turns in suggesting recreations. To-night it was Henry Long's turn, and to him accordingly the eyes of the group turned at Jessie's question.

Let's have an old folks' party, was his answer.

Considering that all of the club were yet at ages when they celebrated their birthdays with the figure printed on the cake, the suggestion seemed sufficiently irrelevant.

In that case, said Frank Hays, we shall have to stay at home.

Frank was an alert little fellow, with a jaunty air, to whom, by tacit consent, all the openings for jokes were left, as he had a taste that way.

What do you mean, Henry? inquired George Townsley, a thick-set, sedate young man, with an intelligent, but